Here goes:
In Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, Alice, confused at all the goings-on around her, asks the Chesire cat what path she should take. He responds, `That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.’ To this Alice says that she doesn’t really care where she went, and the Cat again responds to her comment, ‘Then it doesn't matter which way you go.”
Unlike Alice, as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I know where I want to go. The ultimate goal of my life is live once again with my Heavenly Father.
Mahatmas K. Ghandi said that “Our beliefs become our thoughts, our thoughts become our words, our words become our actions, our actions become our habits, our habits become our values, and our values become our destiny.” I’m sure many of you have heard this statement before, or at least an iteration of it, and it echoes what we are told in Proverbs 23:7: “for as [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he.”
In D&C 121:45 it reads, “Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly: then shall they confidence wax strong in the presence of God: and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven.” I want to focus on the part “let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly: then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God.”
I am reminded of D&C 27:15-18, where God says to
Gird up your loins, and take upon you my whole armor, that ye may be able to withstand the evil day, having done all, that ye may be able to stand. 16Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, which I have sent mine angels to commit unto you; 17Taking the shield of faith wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked; 18And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of my Spirit, which I will pour out upon you, and my word which I reveal unto you, and be agreed as touching all things whatsoever ye ask of me, and be faithful until I come and ye shall be caught up, that where I am ye shall be also.
I had to include all those verses because they are so beautiful and such a wonderful promise. God states right there at the end where we want to be, and isn’t a wonderful promise to be “caught up, that where [He] is, we shall be also”? I can hardly imagine what it would be like to live with God, the most loving being. I imagine comfort and light everywhere, and this overwhelming feeling of love present all the time that I can only ever catch glimpses of. Thoughts orient action, and if I transform my thoughts, my character will also be transformed.
The 13th Article of Faith says: “We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men. Indeed, we may say we follow the admonition of Paul – we believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.”
As a member of the LDS Church, I believe this and try to follow it. I want to be surrounded people who are honest and true, people I can trust.
We have been promised that if we are righteous, we can obtain all that the Father has. But there are reasons why He asks us to be like Him. He is the most perfect being, and we can learn perfection from Him. One way is to try and think the way He would think. Inviting wholesome thoughts into our heads, having and showing concern for our fellow human beings, and thinking about others are some of the ways in which we can think like Him. I don’t think we’ll be perfected for some time yet, but like D&C 93:28 states, “He that keepeth his commandments receiveth truth and light, until he is glorified in truth and knoweth all things.” Even what we term to be “secular” knowledge, like scientific or literary knowledge, are worthy things to think about because God has created and organized our universe.
I personally believe that He must know everything from the metabolic processes in our cells to how the atoms in our bodies arranged to the composition of planets on far sides of our galaxy as well as understand the interactions between humans and the part of Christ that resides within humans. He knows that “truth is beauty, beauty truth” (Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn). Shakespeare had some understanding of the essential, divine bond between parents and children, because when King Lear has been reunited with his daughter after casting her away, he asks her to
Gladly come away to prison.
We two alone will sing like birds i’ th’ cage.
So we’ll live, and pray, and sing, and tell old
tales, and laugh at gilded butterflies…
And take upon ‘us the mystery of things,
as if we were God’s spies; and we’ll wear out,
In a wall’d prison, packs and sects of great ones
that ebb and flow by th’ moon” (Shakespeare King Lear V.iii),
All that we think about and try discover, God knows already. It is a worthy thing to study the universe, it is a worthy thing to study literature and the productions of the human mind.
“He comprehendeth all things, and all things are before him, and all things round about him; and he is above all things, and in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things; and all things are by him, and of him, even God, forever and ever” (D&C 88:41).
In addition to keeping thoughts pure – for example, avoiding music with bad lyrics, vulgar movies, and pornography – there are other ways to keep pure thoughts. The following idea has been very relevant to me in my personal life. In my classes, we talk a lot about theories. A lot of people talk about there being no “universal truth,” no “universal right” and that gives license, so it seems, for anyone to do anything (barring killing them or taking away their free will). In speaking in a conference on behavioral science at BYU in 1976, Elder Neal A. Maxwell shared his thoughts about faith and science in the late 20th century. In a world increasingly prone to relativism, he said that
Relativism involves the denial of the existence of absolute truths and, therefore, of an absolute truth-giver, God. Relativism has sometimes been a small, satanic sea breeze, but now the winds of relativism have reached gale proportions. Over a period of several decades relativism has eroded ethics, public and personal, has worn down the will of many, has contributed to a slackening sense of duty, civic and personal. The old mountains of individual morality have been worn down. This erosion has left mankind in a sand-dune society, in a desert of disbelief where there are no landmarks, and no north, no east, no west, and no south!” (Elder Neal A. Maxwell, Some Thoughts on the Gospel and the Behavioral Sciences, Ensign July 1976.)
Sometimes it is tiring to be repeatedly told there is no absolute truth, that only personal truth and fulfillment are important; I believe in God and that he exists, and that there is a right.
Wherever bad thoughts can lead, there is always a way to get back. Boyd K. Packer suggests that music with vulgar lyrics be taken from our music devices, and whenever we hear those lyrics playing in our minds, that we replace them with a hymn. Bruce K. Fordham gave the following analogy in an article in the April 2009 Ensign: “You are standing at the edge of the jungle and know that you must find a way through it. You notice that a path, well worn and easy to travel, has already been cut through the undergrowth for you. But then you notice signs warning of dangers lurking at the end of the path, and even though it appears to be the easiest route, you determine that it might be best to forge your own path. You pull out a machete and start hacking through the thick growth and underbrush. It’s tough work! When you glance up and again notice the path that has already been cut, you become discouraged. But you persevere, eventually carving out your own path. You use it frequently as you traverse the jungle, and in time it becomes the obvious, preferred path. Meanwhile, the original well-worn path—the one with danger at the end—deteriorates from lack of use.”
Boyd K. Packer gives the following story: “Have you noticed that shady little thoughts may creep in from the wings and attract your attention in the middle of almost any performance and without any real intent on your part? These delinquent thoughts will try to upstage everybody. If you permit them to go on, all thoughts of any virtue will leave the stage. You will be left, because you consented to it, to the influence of unrighteous thoughts. … When they have the stage, if you let them, they will devise the most clever persuasions to hold your attention. They can make it interesting all right, even convince you that they are innocent, for they are but thoughts. What do you do at a time like that, when the stage of your mind is commandeered by the imps of unclean thinking, whether they be the gray ones that seem almost clean or the filthy ones that leave no room for doubt? If you can fill your mind with clean and constructive thoughts, then there will be no room for these persistent imps, and they will leave.”
Ultimately, the only thing over which we have control is our minds and actions. The greatest deception comes from Satan, who “promotes the idea that our thoughts control us rather than that we control our thoughts” (Bruce K. Fordham, “Think About What You Are Thinking About”). God has given us our bodies and the ability to think, and He has given us our agency. To do our best by Him, I want to keep worthy thoughts – and my Heavenly Father – constantly on my mind, for where our treasures are, there will our hearts (and thoughts) be also. I want to return to my Heavenly Father, and I must be clean to dwell with him. If I keep my sights set on the final and the ultimate goal, and have Him as my constant thought, I will attain that goal.
Doctor Seuss’ “Oh the Places You’ll Go!”
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.
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